I Will Blow the Cold Away
by kayhampster
Summary: Helga and the gang are about to face the biggest threat of their lives. Rated T for language and other themes. -Completed!-
1. Not Bowing Out

**Well hey there! Chapter 3 of Songs of Hillwood is almost finished, I promise and will most likely be up on Tuesday at the earliest. To be honest, I'm not exactly thrilled by how this one came out compared to What Goes Around...Comes Around. But I'll explain that more once it gets published.  
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**This, however, is a new thing that I have been working on for the past two weeks. It is a short story with each chapter based on three songs. However, unlike Songs in Hillwood, you never see the lyrics for the song. It's just a basic story that I wrote using the ideas from the songs.  
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**All three songs are from the same band called Breaking Benjamin. And Chapter 1 was based off the song, I Will Not Bow.  
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**To give a quick little summary, the main character in this story is Helga. There is no romance, just pure thrills, actions and the hopes of not being killed. Did I mention it's Helga and the gang versus Zombies? Cause it is. 2012 anyone? xD  
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**Well, this is chapter one of three of a new story I call, "I Will Not Blow the Cold Away".  
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**Enjoy!**

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**I Will Not Blow the Cold Away**

**Chapter 1: Not Bowing Out**

…_If only he could see me now. He'd be ashamed on the different person that I've become. The darker, more twisted version that I have become. That goody-two-shoes wouldn't know dark if it hit in his square in the jaw. Stupid kid is only gonna see the positives, and is only going to get hurt because of it…._

…_That'll help him see reality…._

…_It doesn't matter though. He's gone, they're all gone. And it's only me left in a world where I don't even belong..._

It took a few moments for Helga to shake herself out of her thoughts as she heard a low rumble coming from downstairs. She grabbed her bow and arrow, hoisted it over her shoulder and into her pack and snuck down the stairs.

_Great. Another one, in my kitchen_. She sighed and launched the arrow through a hole in the banister in her steps. She smirked as she heard a thud. _Bulls-eye._ She leaped into the kitchen and stood beside the lifeless body. She had noticed that it had been one of the relatives of her friend Sheena. It didn't matter though. She had killed Sheena last Thursday after attempting to gather food for herself. Both Sheena and Eugene had managed to find her and had chased her down the block before she had managed to get a decent shot to kill either of them.

She was running low on food again. Damn thing ate the last that she had. She cursed to herself and grabbed a knife hidden in one of the kitchen cabinets.

To her, this whole zombie apocalypse was a piece of cake. After all those countless zombie video games that she had spent playing her room into the late hours of the morning, putting everything into action wasn't too incredibly hard for the 18 year old.

Before all of this, she would have been a senior in high school. She would have been the varsity captain and star pitcher of the Hillwood High School Eagles softball team, since she wasn't allowed to play baseball with the boys. She would have been surrounded by all her friends. Rhonda, Gerald, Curly, Brainy, Phoebe, Harold, Sid, Stinky, Eugene, Sheena, Lila, Nadine and Arnold. She missed them all and fighting zombies of them wasn't exactly comforting to imagine. For what she had figured out, Sheena, Eugene, Brainy and Nadine were dead. She killed two of them but had no idea how the other two had been killed. Probably doing something stupid of course.

Heading into the streets, she stared up at the sky that was incredibly dark and cloudless, even though it was supposed to be 11 in the morning. She walked past the dead bodies that had been in the streets, being wary of the ones that occasionally popped out and attempted to grab her as she walked towards the corner market. She didn't have the heart to run for her life and run back home. That's the coward's way out. She had to fight to survive and she was going to do it her way.

With each step she took on the asphalt, she felt her heart beat just a little faster, her brain dive a little bit deeper into the thoughts that she knew she shouldn't be having. She quickened her pace as she approached the corner store and slid into a hole in the boarded up front. It looked like there had been some stuff stolen from the store, which means that either they had gotten in and were somewhere around the store…or that someone else was alive.

She gripped the edge of her crossbow as she heard a movement from one of the aisles. Picking her feet off the ground and leaping on top of one of the shelves with all of her effort she scanned the aisles. It was quiet, for a few seconds before she heard movements again. Her pulse quickened. She leaped from shelf to shelf without attempting to make a sound, but struggled after the third shelf, gasping quickly as she climbed up. She instantly silenced herself when she heard footsteps. They were too close for comfort. She jumped down and hid behind another shelf. She pulled the crossbow back and took aim at the back of the person's head further down the aisle until they yelled in shock.

"Wait! Don't shoot! I'm alive!"

She paused but still firmly held her grip on the edge of the bow. How could they have possibly heard her?

"Prove it!" She grumbled.

She watched the person turn around. He was a pale kid, long black hair with a worn out green baseball cap on his head. His eyes looked almost empty, he must have been hiding for days because she noticed the stubble on his face. He had a ripped white shirt and a pair of jeans. It took her a moment to recognize him, but she could tell that he was still alive. She crawled out of her hiding spot and stood on the other end of the aisle.

"Helga? Is that you? We all thought you were dead."

"We? There are more of you..."

"There's five of us that I know of that are still alive. Three of them are with me. Then there is you. And some mysterious kid that I have ran into a couple times, I never caught the kid's name though."

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you."

Sid grinned.

"I should have known a tough chick like you would have made it through."

She hugged him.

"We should probably get out of here. Where have you been hiding at?"

"My house. Why?"

"You've managed to get your house back. Zombies flock to my side of the block."

"Well let's grab the rest of them and you guys can stay with me. I obviously have enough room."

They crawled out of the store and walked down the street towards Sid's hideout. After going through obstacles, constantly jumping, crawling and sidestepping objects, they managed to get to the doorway. He knocked on the door, 3 quick knocks and then a swift kick to the bottom of the door frame. A small hole opened towards the top of the door where a small voice baaed. _What the hell was going on here?_ Sid quickly turned to her with an apologetic grin and then back to the door and neighed. The door opened and a small Asian girl appeared in the doorway.

"Thank god you made it back! Gerald and I were starting to worry."

"Phoebe?"

Phoebe looked completely different. Her long black hair that Helga had last seen her with had been cut short, in almost a bob hairstyle, a flashback to the fourth grade, to the shy and quiet Phoebe that hid behind Helga's aggressive nature. Her head had a black ribbon tied around it to keep the hair out of her eyes and wore all black just like Helga did. The look in Phoebe's eyes was something that surprised her, something that she hadn't seen in a very long time. Hope.

"Helga!" She rushed over and hugged her.

"Did I hear correctly? Helga? As in Helga G. Pataki?" Gerald came from out of the shadows.

"You heard right Hair Boy. I'm back and better than ever." She grinned.

Gerald smiled.

"Good to know that someone like you is on our side. I'd hate to imagine you as one of those zombies."

"You'd be dead by now if I was."

She had looked around their hideout and back to Phoebe who was still hugging her.

"Pheebs, you can let go now."

She let go quickly.

"So what…."

"Happened to everyone else?" She nodded.

The rest of the room looked like they had knives pushed through their stomachs, Sid being the worst of them all. Phoebe spoke up.

"At this point, we only know that out of the 14 of us, four of us remain alive, seven are dead, and three are missing."

Helga hadn't realized that so many people were gone from her life. It took a lot of out her that her friends were dead, well rather undead. She sighed.

"Who?"

"Sheena, Eugene, Brainy, Nadine, Lila, Harold and Stinky are dead. There is the four of us. We have no idea about Arnold, Rhonda, or Curly."

Gerald looked almost sick.

"Lila and Stinky are still walking among the zombie clan. Sid and Gerald managed to kill Harold and Brainy a while ago. I killed Nadine as she was attempting to get in here. "

Phoebe looked quickly at the ground as she ended her statement. Clearly she wasn't proud of the fact that she had killed someone. In fact, none of the people in this room seemed too proud of their actions. It was something that had to be done though, if they wanted to keep living.

"So for all we know, Arnold, Rhonda and Curly could be dead too…"

She sniffled.

"I'm afraid so."

It was at that moment where she thought she heard scratches from outside of the metal protecting them. They all froze. Someone or something was trying to get in. Helga grabbed her crossbow and ran to the door while Gerald, Phoebe and Sid grabbed their own weapons from their rooms.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. We're surrounded, we're fucking surrounded."

The three others looked in fear at each other.

"I've been through one of these before. It was the night of my first kill. Some kid saved me." Sid squeaked.

"Well, let's hope that we won't need him to save us now."

Helga felt bodies thudding against the walls that had managed to keep them safe from the outside world. Thud after thud against the metal. It wasn't going to hold up much longer and they needed to get out. Now.

"Anyone got a plan?"

Sid looked to Helga and Gerald. Phoebe gripped the edge of the couch she had been sitting on a little tighter. Gerald looked at her. Helga soon spoke up, fearing that she had been dubbed the leader of their tiny group.

"I got something. We get to the roof of this, climb up the fire escape on the building next door and get to the roof there. We hide up there until most of them go find someone else."

"You really think that is going to work?" Sid questioned.

"You want to try something else?" Helga snapped quickly.

Gerald and Phoebe stared at each other, but nodded and followed Helga as she scaled one of the bookcases and started up to the top of the hideout. Helga gasped as she heard the moans and groans at the bottom of the structure. She quickly looked around at the swarm of zombies below them. Phoebe grabbed quickly onto Gerald's hand, Sid twitched uncomfortably and adjusted his baseball cap and Helga put an arrow into her crossbow.

"Let's do this."

Gerald grabbed Phoebe and put her onto his shoulders and attempted to leap to the fire escape. Helga followed after them. As she reached out her hand to help Sid onto the fire escape, an arm reached up and grabbed Sid's ankle.

"Helga!"

With all their might, Helga, Phoebe and Gerald attempted to grab onto Sid's arms. It soon became a game of tug of war for Sid's life, the dead grabbing Sid's ankles while the living kept their grasp on Sid's wrists. Helga soon realized that the zombies soon piling onto each other outnumbered their strength. Phoebe saw out of the corner of her eye that Lila was climbing the fire escape in an effort to attack from behind and kicked her swiftly in the jaw, sending her tumbling back down the ground. They kept pulling onto Sid as Phoebe attempted to ward them off with her trusty katana that she had stolen from her house before it was attacked.

Sid had managed to snake his way out of their grasp with one final pull from Helga and Gerald and they soon climbed higher up the fire escape to safety. They panted heavily and Phoebe ran into Gerald's arms, crying. He stroked her hair as Sid sat in ball in the middle of the building, attempting to recover from his brush with death. Helga scanned the edge of the building as the zombies moaned from below, attempting to climb each other to get at them. For now, Helga realized that they were safe and fell backwards onto the concrete in exhaustion.

Looking back at the midnight sky, she realized that it was only getting darker and colder, just like the hope that Helga had in being able to find the rest of her friends and saving the ones that she had managed to find so far. All her life she had been the leader and had been able to show just the amount of skill and courage that she had in order to do the job. But at this point in time, she was something that she wasn't willing to admit to the people around her.

Afraid.

For all her life, she had attempted to show the people around her that she wasn't afraid of anything. She had managed to face the odds with success no matter what situation had been thrown at her, of course, they were nothing compared to this. It was a battle for life and death and Helga wasn't ready to die, but didn't exactly know if anyone in the heavens above her believed the same thing that she did. She wanted to consider herself a hero, but after the experiences that she had been through in her past, covering up anything and everything, making herself seem like this incredibly strong person, it had all been a ploy to cover up how she really was. Weak and constantly terrified of the world around her and how they would treat her if her dark truth ever came out.

She only knew that she couldn't give up, she couldn't break the mask that she had shown the people around her, they were counting on her to make it safely out of this. No matter how paranoid she was of her chances of survival, she needed to keep her carefully sculpted ego in tact. Her fake, cold ego where she constantly tuned out people and shut the entire world away from her fragile emotions.

Her emotions were something she needed to keep to herself in order to survive.


	2. How Defenseless We Really Are

**Hey everybody!**

****Sigh, I'm finally done chapter 2. Which means only one more chapter left! D:

But this chapter is modeled of the song **So Cold by Breaking Benjamin**. And to be honest, I had HUGE amounts of writer's block in the middle of this chapter and thought I wasn't gonna finish by Monday. But it's done a day early thanks to my amazing brain powers that decided to come up with ideas last night. *breathes a sigh of relief*

I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter as much as you did the first chapter cause I definitely made sure that the second chapter has a little more back-story to it. You get to hear a Sid backstory! OMG. (Ps. I almost killed off Sid in the first chapter! What was I thinking?)

But my favorite part of this chapter has to be the scene with Helga and someone else. But who? Hmmmmmm. (Hint: My favorite friendship pairing ever! Sorry Sid and Helga friendship fans, but this one is my top.)

There's also some pretty serious issues in here. Hence the T rating people. But it makes sense as to the character's background.

Here's Chapter 2 of I Will Not Blow the Cold Away! Enjoy. :D

**Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. I just put them in crazy events and hope for the best. xD  
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**Chapter 2: How Defenseless We Really Are**

Helga woke up suddenly as she heard a noise from downstairs, realizing that she was dripping in sweat. Another nightmare. She couldn't take another night of the constant worrying. She stood and opened the door and listened to the sounds throughout the house. She could hear snoring from the room next door, the crackles of the fireplace downstairs and a soft crying sound. She determined that it was worth investigating and descended down the stairs. There was Phoebe sitting in front of the fire. When Phoebe realized that there was another person in the room with her, she turned her head. Helga felt her heart breaking from the look on Phoebe's face. From the light of the fire, she saw streams of tears down Phoebe's fair face. Her hair was down and slightly disheveled, like she had rolled out of bed after lying there for a long period of time without sleeping. She walked over to her and sat beside her in front of the fireplace. Phoebe turned back to the fire as they sat for several silent minutes. All that could be heard was the occasional sniffles from Phoebe.

"I'm scared Helga."

Helga turned to watch her expressions while Phoebe continued to look into the bright flames.

"I'm scared we're going to be killed, I'm scared of what's going to happen to us. I just don't know anymore…" She started to sob.

"I'm…"

Helga had no idea what to say, she wasn't sure whether or not to tell Phoebe what she was really feeling. If she lied, she'd feel horrible but if she told the truth, all that hope that Phoebe had in her would disappear. Helga pulled her into a hug as Phoebe cried softly into Helga's shoulder. She managed to bring her voice to a soft whisper.

"I'm scared too."

For Helga, it had been a night of little sleep, something that she had grown used to. Gerald and Sid talked over coffee in the kitchen as she walked down the stairs. It was out of the corner of her eye that she noticed movements from outside of the door. And she didn't like the look of it.

"Guys."

They looked to her.

"We've got company."

Gerald ran over to the window with Sid attempting to scramble out of his chair. Phoebe had appeared behind Helga and looked at her. It was what Helga had feared. They had been found yet again and this time, there were a larger number of them. She felt goose bumps rise onto her skin and reached down for the knife that she kept in a strap by her ankle. What confused her was not only were there the moans and groans from the zombies as they marched down the streets towards the house, but screams. One high pitched female scream. She opened the door as she saw two people running by.

Helga was right about the scream being female as she saw one tall boy pull a slightly smaller girl behind him as they continued to run down the streets. It wasn't in Helga's best interest to protect them from danger. Until she noticed the shoes on the girl's feet. Only the most fashionable person in Hillwood would be caught wearing those shoes, even if they were broken from running. Rhonda.

She heard their voices as they got closer and closer to the house as the four of them scrambled to the side of the building.

"Dammit Rhonda, if you slow me down, so help me, I'm letting you go."

"But what about what you said last night!"

"I meant what I said. Now keep up. We've gotta find a place to hide."

"Curly! There's nowhere left! Everyone is dead and soon so are we."

"There are still five people out there where I have no idea where they are. They could be in the crowd behind us, but I'm not stopping to check, so let's go!"

Helga reached for her knife and spun in towards the building across the street from them. Phoebe gasped. Rhonda screamed even louder. Curly froze.

"Curly! Since when do zombies throw knives?"

He grinned.

"They don't."

He picked the knife off the ground and examined it.

"I thought you said that there's no time to stop!"

"This is Helga's."

Helga grinned from the doorway. She knew befriending Curly had been a good idea.

"How the hell do you know that?"

"She has a Swiss Army knife. She kept it on her at all times after…" He paused.

"After what?"

"Forget it. It's a long story. This means that Helga is alive."

"She is?"

Curly looked around. Helga turned towards Phoebe.

"I need anything I can throw."

Phoebe picked up a rock from behind her.

"This work?"

"No I need something recognizable."

Sid took off his hat and placed it onto one of Helga's arrows.

"Shoot this."

"Perfect."

She took the arrow and aimed it at the wall ahead of her. She took fire and watched Rhonda sharply react while Curly watched the arrow stick into the door ahead of them. He smiled.

"Isn't that Sid's hat?"

"I know where they are."

About a quarter mile away, a mysterious stranger stood on the top of Mr. Green's Meats and tapped the edge of the building with his shotgun. He had been watching the "couple" run into an alleyway before the zombie hoard could find where they had gotten too. He took a picture of the alleyway with a small camera and leapt across the buildings into the darkness.

The instant that Curly found Helga, they hugged tightly.

"You remembered my Swiss Army knife? After all of this time?" He laughed.

"You got me out of a lot of trouble with that knife when we were younger. Here's your hat, Sid."

Sid scooped the hat back up and placed it on top of his head. Rhonda burst into tears of joy.

"I can't believe you are all still alive! We thought you were goners for sure."

"Honestly, Princess, I can't believe YOU are still alive. Thought you would have been the first one…"

She made a cutting motion across her throat. Everyone except Rhonda laughed. Rhonda turned to Curly, who was in the middle of laughing, and glared at him, causing him to instantly stop and put his head to the ground in shame.

"Thanks for the faith." She muttered under her breath.

"Let's just get somewhere safe. So that the zombies don't find us." Phoebe chirped behind them.

"Good idea."

They all quickly scrambled into the backyard and through the backdoor and bolted it shut and shoving several heavy objects in front of the door and windows. Gerald grabbed the remaining bedroom doors and they all helped hammer and screw boards to the extra downstairs windows. Once they felt safe enough, they collapsed onto the floor in Helga's living room.

"Finally, a safe place to hide." Rhonda sighed.

"Where were you guys?" Gerald asked, cleaning his knife as Phoebe slid closer to him.

"We were at Rhonda's."

"But Rhonda's is by my house. How did you not get caught? That place is swamped with zombies." Sid questioned.

"Curly's crazy." Rhonda responded.

They all nodded in understanding as Curly started to laugh.

"I had my father's gun, a 45. It worked pretty well at protecting us until we ran out of bullets. We were actually heading to the gun shop when we started getting chased."

"Your father had a gun before all this?" Phoebe looked at Gerald in concern.

"Yea, to keep shoplifters and stuff out of his new store. He was incredibly protective of that place. When he was killed and about to turn over, I shot him in the head and took his gun."

The gang remained quiet.

"You guys haven't had to shoot your parents to stay alive?"

"I haven't." came the responses from Gerald, Sid, Phoebe and Rhonda.

"I have." Helga whispered.

They all turned to her as she slumped further into her father's old chair.

"Miriam went outside and got bitten, even after the warning. Stupid. Bob tried to fight her off but he got bit too. Olga is still alive in Alaska. It hasn't spread anywhere besides Hillwood yet from what I know of."

"It won't," Curly added, "We're in a giant bubble until the government figures out what to do with us."

"You mean, we might die in here?" Rhonda gasped, Curly hesitantly nodded.

"It's been two weeks, though. They had to have thought of something." Sid stammered.

"Maybe. But until all the zombies are dead, we're not getting out of here. We have to kill or be killed."

The entire room went silent once more until Rhonda spoke again.

"I just have two questions. What happened to Stinky and Lila? We kinda figured you guys killed everyone else cause we saw their dead bodies on the streets. "

Sid cringed quickly at the sound of Stinky's name as Helga motioned for her to ask the second question.

"Okay and what exactly is going on with Helga's knife that she practically threw at us? Curly said it was a long story and I kinda want to know if we all might die."

Helga knew it was her turn to react at the question but she kept her face emotionless and she played with the knife handle.

"You wanna go first, Sid?"

Sid looked down at the gun by his feet as Gerald put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, man."

Phoebe gave him a half smile as Rhonda and Curly stared at him. Sid looked quickly to Helga who wasn't giving him any signs. He drew a breath and went into his story.

"Stink and I were hiding at his house when this whole thing started. We both had his dad's shotguns and Stink's dad told us to shoot anything to looked like it was gonna bite us and to be safe and walked out the door, only for him to get attacked by a decent size swarm."

He paused.

"We shot everything, I had never killed anyone or anything in my life up until that day. I remember us racing up the stairs and sitting in Stink's room, attempting to figure out a plan. He wanted to check on Lila, cause they were dating at the time, but I was trying to convince him otherwise. We fought about it and he just left. I tried chasing after him and as he walked into the street…he…he got bitten. By Harold."

Helga watched the tears starting to form in his eyes. Gerald kept a hand on his shoulder as Rhonda leaned over to hold his hand tightly. Curly turned to look at Helga and she watched his face to see if she could get anything off of him. He looked just about as emotionless as she did. She turned back to Sid who was attempting to finish the story.

"I…I was supposed to back him up…that's what best friends do…he died because I didn't back him up. He couldn't take them all on his own. I couldn't shoot him after that. I…I just couldn't kill my best friend, zombie or not."

"It's okay Sid. We understand."

"He tried to grab me, last night. I had nightmares after that. Nightmares where he wanted revenge for leaving him. He grabbed me last night because he wanted revenge. I just know it."

Helga sat up.

"Stinky was the zombie that grabbed you?"

"Yea. I looked into his eyes, but there was nothing there. Just cold, dead eyes."

Sid started to sob as Phoebe hugged him, Rhonda leaned back into the sofa cushion and started to tear up. Curly reached for her hand and she took it with a small smile and rubbed her eyes. The only thing heard now in the room was the small sobs coming from Sid.

"As for the knife…" Helga started.

Everyone except Curly turned to face Helga. Curly already knew the story behind Helga's Swiss Army knife and continued to rub Rhonda's hand softly.

"My knife is my grandfather's from the Vietnam War. I stole it from my dad when I was 14 and used it at first to bust Curly out of some tricky situations before he got caught by the police. We started becoming friends because of this knife."

Curly smiled as Helga continued.

"I call this knife Ar…"

She paused as four pairs of eyes focused on her.

"Ar…Archangel. It saved my life countless amounts of times. I…I've had a pretty dark past. And this knife saved me from being beat up from my father once. It started once his beeper empire started going downhill, Bob would get drunk and when he gets drunk, he gets aggressive, so he beat on me and Miriam a lot. I didn't come to school on days where I got beat, I was too embarrassed of the bruises and scratches. But this knife, one night, saved me and Miriam not too long ago."

Helga felt her heart sink. Archangel? What a lame fake name for a knife. Curly looked at her with a doubtful look on his face. Only he would ever know the truth of it's actual name.

"I threatened him with it. He tried to hit me so I cut him with it and ran out as Miriam, being the idiot she was, went to help him out. I ran away and hid for a couple hours until I knew that Bob was sober enough. He didn't even remember where the cut came from. Big idiot. I used it every time that Bob got too close to Miriam or me. I also used it to kill both of my parents when they were about to bite me and turn me. Kill or be killed. Sure, it took a while for me to get over but I didn't want to die."

Helga knew that the rest of the gang had no idea what to think about this story and Sid put a hand on her knee.

"Why didn't you tell anyone this was going on? You could have gotten help." Gerald asked.

"I didn't want to bug people with my problems. I was supposed to be tough Helga Pataki, the one that doesn't let anything get to her."

"You still are." Sid smiled.

Helga smiled.

"Yea, I still am."

Everyone else looked at her and attempted to comfort her, but she didn't want anyone's pity or comfort. Curly, however, knew that she had been lying.

When everyone went to bed, Helga stayed in her father's chair, still examining her knife in the light of the fire. Curly emerged from the doorway and sat next to her.

"You lied."

"You know I lied."

"Not about the story, Helga."

She looked at him as he stared at her with all knowing eyes. She sighed.

"I did lie."

"Why?"

"I'm supposed to be some sort of hero, a tough girl with an unbreakable shell. And before you, only one person saw through me."

"This person also happens to share the same name as your knife."

She smiled as she stared back down at the knife.

"Why didn't you tell people the actual story about it?"

"What he and I had was something…something that I don't really like talking about. It would break the whole illusion that is Helga G. Pataki. So I told the story a little differently."

"I knew you liked him, but what happened the night with your father, why name it that, if it is because of the fact that you were obsessed with him still…"

She laughed.

"No. There's so much more than that."

Helga couldn't believe it. She had cut her own father with a knife. She was afraid of what other things she could be capable of. She shoved the knife back into her pocket and ran out the door into the night air. She was ready to start crying, but knew that she needed to find a safe place to do it. She continued to briskly walk down the street and thought she would be home free until she bumped into someone.

Arnold.

"Helga? You okay?"

"Yea…fine." She squeaked.

She didn't even want to insult him. She just wanted to run and she was about to until he grabbed her arm and spun her around.

"Helga, what is going on? You clearly look upset."

"I'm fine, Arnold. Really, I just need to go for a run is all."

She started to lean forward but felt the grip on her arm tighten. She never realized how strong and forceful Arnold could actually be.

"Tell me, please."

She sighed as she looked into his eyes. They were so warm and inviting, but also full of concern and fear. She felt her eyes start to water.

"You're gonna think I'm a complete freak or a psychopath or something."

"I'm not. I..."

"Don't promise. Cause you will."

Arnold looked at her in confusion but walked with her as she sat on his front steps. With her voice shaking and her confidence faltering, she told Arnold the truth.

"My dad got drunk and was trying to hit me and Miriam. So I…I cut him… with a knife when he got too close and ran out of the house."

Arnold looked dumbfounded. She rummaged through her pockets and pulled out the Army knife and opened it to show the flecks of blood on the top edge of the blade. Arnold looked at her and back to the knife and then back to her. He must have seen the look on her face because he pulled her into a hug and didn't let go. She openly cried onto his shoulder.

"You…you don't think…"

"No. I don't think you're crazy or a freak. You were defending yourself and your mom in the only way you knew would work. I don't condone it in any way and think that there probably could have been another way…"

Helga sighed as Arnold let go over her.

"Always like you to question my humanity."

"I'm not questioning your humanity, Helga. You've been through a lot. How come you didn't tell anyone this was happening to you? And how long has it been?"

"Since I was 14… and I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want the pity card being played on me like it is now. I didn't want people to know that I had these problems going on, I just thought that one day, I'd be able to escape them. I'm almost a senior in high school, Arnold. I just need to finish the last year and I'm free forever from him."

"It's been four years?"

"I was absent a lot because of the bruises and the cuts. Too embarrassed to walk into school with black eyes. My reputation would be ruined if I walked into school with a shiner on my face. It would look like someone could actually get to me."

"Your reputation was more important to you than your safety?"

"At the time…yes…"

Arnold put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to his chest.

"Well…there's nothing that I can do to change how you felt in the past…but I can hope to change the future..."

Helga stared up at him.

"How?"

"Just by being here when you need me. For anything that might be bugging you, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem to you. It's the least I can do."

"But why Arnold, I've done nothing but picked on you for the last 14 years."

"Cause I care about you, I don't want to see you getting hurt, Helga."

She stared down at the knife and back into Arnold's eyes.

"Do you promise to tell me if something is bugging you?"

She hesitated and then nodded.

"I…I promise." She stammered.

"That night changed my life. The fact that I could tell someone every little thing that was going on in my life without judgment was something I had never experienced before. It was something that I knew was going to attempt to make me a better person. I named my knife his name for that reason alone. Not because I was crazy about him. For that night, I forgot that I had feelings for him. He was someone that was there and that's all that mattered."

Curly smiled as he got up and kissed Helga quickly on the cheek.

"Good night Helga and thank you."

"For the story about the knife?"

"For the truth."

She watched Curly march up the stairs and she turned back into the light of the fire and closed her eyes.

"Helga!"

Helga awoke to a start again as she heard her name being screamed from the kitchen.

"Rhonda? What is going on?"

"Something is in the house."

She sighed.

"It's probably a mouse or something."

"I…I heard a moan from your laundry room."

Helga froze. Had they forgotten about the laundry room? She heard a low moan and a thud against the laundry room door. Rhonda screamed.

"Guys! We've got a friend coming to visit! And it's not a very nice one!"

She heard several more moans from down the hallway as she pulled Rhonda towards the steps. The rest of the gang filed down the steps, weapons in tow and sprinted towards the back door where Helga led them towards the front of the house. She watched the zombies attempt to file into the house and noticed several of them catching on that they were out front and lunged towards the front of the house. Helga felt the ball of knots in her stomach squeeze tighter.

"You guys ready?"

"Let's do this, Captain." Curly stepped beside her and pulled back on his gun.

With that, they took charge. Gerald, Sid and Phoebe went back and forth attempting to cut of the heads of the incoming zombies. Curly threw Rhonda a gun and they took shot after shot at the heads and hearts. Helga pulled her knife out of her back pocket as she noticed Lila lunging for her. With a quick slip of the hand, she sliced a wide strip of the flesh of Lila's neck and watched her wobble backwards before she finished the job of cutting her head clean off. What she didn't notice was the zombie behind her that was getting closer and closer to biting her until Rhonda screamed.

"Helga! Behind you!"

She froze and attempted to turn around and slice at the zombie's neck when she heard a gunshot and felt her ears ringing. She turned back forwards and noticed a tall figure with an old-fashioned shot gun pointed in her direction. He took two more shots at two more zombies behind her before lowering his weapon and walking towards her.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"You'll find out soon enough." The mysterious stranger growled back at her, before stroking her cheek and disappearing back into the night.


	3. Until the End

**SURPRISE!**

**Chapter 3 is up!** And I have a confession to make. The story was supposed to end right here and right now. But...it's not. That's right there are now** 4** chapters in this story. Also, I found another Breaking Benjamin song to go with it, so success!

**DEAR GOD DID THIS CHAPTER GIVE ME TROUBLE**. I've been sitting here for a week and a half writing it and I still wasn't done. So I decided to make the huge ending scene in Chapter 4. Cause I mean come on, it needs it's own chapter in order for it to be awesome right?

Now this chapter is based of the song **"Until the End" by Breaking Benjamin** which is the other song that I found that I realized could be put to this. So I was very very excited.

I'll give you some warning though. **THIS IS THE CHAPTER WITH THE REVEAL OF THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER**. *gasps*

And the scene between him and Helga is one of the most fun things that I have written so far.

**AND SPOILERS:** A main character is going to die this chapter. But who? _Hmmmmm..._ Read on to find out!

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 3

Until the End

* * *

Quick Recap:

"You guys ready?"

"Let's do this, Captain." Curly stepped beside her and pulled back on his gun.

With that, they took charge. Gerald, Sid and Phoebe went back and forth attempting to cut of the heads of the incoming zombies. Curly threw Rhonda a gun and they took shot after shot at the heads and hearts. Helga pulled her knife out of her back pocket as she noticed Lila lunging for her. With a quick slip of the hand, she sliced a wide strip of the flesh of Lila's neck and watched her wobble backwards before she finished the job of cutting her head clean off. What she didn't notice was the zombie behind her that was getting closer and closer to biting her until Rhonda screamed.

"Helga! Behind you!"

She froze and attempted to turn around and slice at the zombie's neck when she heard a gunshot and felt her ears ringing. She turned back forwards and noticed a tall figure with an old-fashioned shotgun pointed in her direction. He took two more shots at two more zombies behind her before lowering his weapon and walking towards her.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"You'll find out soon enough." The mysterious stranger growled back at her, before stroking her cheek and disappearing back into the night.

* * *

"You'll find out soon enough."

What did he even mean?

Helga shook herself back to reality as she watched her friends battling their hearts out against the zombie hoard. She slid her knife down the spine of a zombie in front of her and ran over to Curly.

"You okay?"

"Yea, Curly, I'm fine."

"Helga, you almost died."

"But I got saved. Why does it matter?"

"You. Almost. Died."

She shoved him away quickly as he sprouted a smile. Helga turned her back to him to watch the rest of the gang fighting and quickly turned her head as she heard a scream and Curly yell behind her.

"Rhonda!"

She snapped her head back to watch Curly sprinting into the zombie hoard and force his way through the zombies that swarmed around them. Helga ran into the crowd, thrashing her knife through the zombie flesh and towards the pair in the center. Rhonda looked a complete mess, but she noticed the bite on her arm and felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach.

"Curly." She managed to whimper.

"It's okay, Rhonda, I'm right here."

She lifted her arm weakly.

"I got bit."

"Shh…Rhonda, just…."

"I'm gonna be one of them Curly. I'm gonna not have emotions and eat human flesh and I…" She sniffled and attempted to raise her head.

"Rhonda, just stay still, I'm gonna figure this out, you're not gonna die. We'll figure this out…I promise…"

"I don't want to be a zombie!" She started to sob uncontrollably.

Curly turned his head to Helga, as the swarm seemed to fade out behind them. Gerald must have noticed them as he, Phoebe, and Sid ran over to their side. Phoebe gasped and held onto Gerald's arm tightly. Sid lowered his head. As for Helga, she stood motionless. Emotionless. She had no idea how to react as she watched Curly attempt to comfort Rhonda.

"Curly. You're going to have to…"

"Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, don't you even suggest that."

"Curly, you have to! I'm gonna kill people and not care. I'm going to die anyway!"

"We can figure something out. We can hide you, keep you safe until we get out of here…"

"Please Curly."

Rhonda looked into his eyes with all the might that she could muster. She squeaked in pain as she grabbed the gun from her back pocket and handed it to him. She looked over at Helga.

"Promise me that you all will survive. That you will lead them out."

Helga nodded.

"Curly. I never got to tell you this or do this."

She leaned her head up slowly and kissed him with all the strength that she had left in her. Curly simply returned it as he felt tears streaming down his face.

"I love you Thaddeus Gammelthorpe. I'm sorry it took me this long to realize."

"Rhonda, please, we can still…"

"Don't make me do it myself. Just shoot, please. It…it needs to end."

Curly hesitated as he stood up and walked in front of Rhonda. The gun shook in his hand and Rhonda pull the barrel of the gun against her heart.

"I'll be looking out for all of you. You're going to get out of this. I love you all."

Phoebe buried her head into Gerald's shoulder as Gerald wiped tears from his eyes. Sid still had his head lowered to the ground but Helga could see the tears falling onto the asphalt below. Helga continued to stare in an empty state of shock. Curly fought back the tears and pressed the gun against her heart. Rhonda smiled.

"I love you Curly."

She reached up and pulled the trigger as an echoing shot pierced the quiet streets. Curly fell to the ground and dropped the gun at Rhonda's feet and stared.

"I love you too Rhonda."

* * *

Helga peeked through the window where a lonely Curly sat beside a small grave. He wasn't making a sound, just sitting silently staring at the pile of dirt that covered his love's body. Helga walked outside and attempted to put a hand on Curly's shoulder. He crumbled into sobs as she sat next to him and put her hand into his.

"She was the most beautiful woman. She loved me, Helga."

He stared at the gun at his feet.

"I killed her."

"You had to, she wanted you to."

"We could have tried to..."

"Curly there was nothing…"

"There had to be something. There just had to. I loved her Helga, haven't you ever been in love like that before?"

Helga froze and Curly turned his head to look at her. He instantly felt her hand pull away from his and she folded them on her lap.

"Helga, I'm…"

"Forget it."

They sat in an awkward silence as they both attempted to figure out the words they wanted to say next.

"You miss him, don't you?"

"Who, Arnold? Of course not."

"You aren't scared that no one has seen him yet? Or that he might be…"

Helga turned to face him.

"Of course I am worried about him. I just…I just don't want to know, just in case he is…"

She gulped and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Do you think he's…"

"No. At least, I don't think so. I'd hope not. But it's been two weeks and no one has heard from him or about him. It's not very likely."

"You seem to be handling it fine, considering the past."

She sighed.

"I have to be strong, Curly. For them."

"You can't be this strong forever. Eventually, something will kick you down and make sure you don't come back up. It did for me." He stared back down at the grave.

"I'm a lot stronger…"

"Than me? Physically and mentally, yes. Emotionally, you're the weakest of us all. You can't fake it stuff like that. How the others haven't read you like a book yet, I'll never know."

"You really think I'm that easy to figure out?" He smiled.

"You only let certain people know your emotions. The day we became friends was the day I knew what you were actually feeling just by your expressions. Phoebe knows. Arnold knew."

"Arnold knew?"

"Arnold was the one who told me that something was going on when we first met. He reaffirmed my suspicions."

"I'm still confused, Arnold knew?"

"Arnold paid a lot more attention than you realized. Ever since he and Gerald saved the neighborhood in the fourth grade."

Helga felt her insides expand for a minute and then suddenly deflate as she remembered the reason why Arnold's name had been brought up in the first place. She faced the grave and leaned her head onto Curly's shoulder.

"We were love-sick messes before." She laughed quietly.

"Hey, if you think about it…love is the only thing that kept us alive. Being able to love someone else, even if they didn't respond for a while, it's what kept us from dying a long time ago. I know it's true for me. I guess I'm happy that I finally hear her say those three words. The most important words in the world to me, said by the most important person in my life. Even though she's gone, I guess…I guess she'll always be with me…right here."

He held a hand to his heart and smiled back to Helga who looked up at him. Helga straightened herself back up as Curly attempted to stand to his feet.

"We're gonna get through this, I promised her we would."

"I know you did, Helga. And you're not one to break your promises. But if we're going to get through this, you're going to need to open up to more people besides me."

Leaving those last words in her head, he kissed the palm of his hand and rested it on Rhonda's makeshift grave, staring up into the sky.

"Goodnight my love."

He walked back into the house as Helga continued to sit in front of the grave and wondered exactly what she should do now. She knew that Curly was right; she did need to let her emotions and fears out more. If she could only figure out how. It just didn't seem like a concept that she'd ever be able to grasp.

"How did you do it, Princess? Tell everyone how you were feeling and not be afraid to show how you really were?"

She sighed and laid down on the ground staring into the dark sky.

"Looks like you're in a bit of struggle."

She sat up quickly by the sound of the deep voice. A shadowy figure stood on the other side of the fence. It was the same man that had saved her earlier. He wore a black hoodie that managed to cover his eyes. She could tell that it was way too big for him, but maybe that was the point. To hide whom he was. Was he exactly like her? Afraid to show himself and let others see the truth?

"I can handle it just fine thanks."

"I'm sure you probably could, doesn't mean that I can't try to help you."

"I'm fine. I don't need your help or anyone else's help."

"Is this how you are gonna repay the person who saved your life earlier? Some gratitude might be nice. You would have almost died, had I not been there."

Okay, now this guy was just bugging her.

"Look buddy, I'm grateful and all. But it was just a fluke. I don't usually make mistakes like that."

"You sure about that? I've seen you fight. You're good, but tend to get yourself and your friends into risky situations. Like the thing with Sid almost dying, and Rhonda here."

He motioned to the grave.

"Not exactly the most active person at the moment, right?"

"You take that back…" She growled.

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy, I'm kidding."

She glared at him.

"Look, I'm only trying to check if you are alright. With everything that happened today, a leader like you might be off their game."

"I'm never off my game, pal."

"I've noticed." She noticed a smile creep onto his face.

"You've been following me?"

"Oh sure, make it seem like I'm some sort of stalker. I'll put it this way; I've been around whenever you get yourself into trouble. Which is a lot."

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'd say I'm the guy that saved your ass, Pataki."

"So you took a lucky shot and killed one, big deal."

"I've also saved Sid and Gerald's lives, Rhonda and Curly's a couple times, but I had the most pleasure in saving yours, it means you owe me."

"I owe you?"

"Usually people are grateful that they aren't going to turn into a zombie, but hey maybe you did want to be one."

She walked closer to him.

"You have some nerve strutting around here, flaunting about how I owe you and this other bullshit, when I don't even know who the hell you even are."

"Why should it matter? You're alive, shouldn't that be all that counts?"

"No wonder you've worked alone all this time, you wouldn't even know the meaning of the word sacrifice if it jumped out in front of you and did a tango on your face."

He paused and walked towards her as she cautiously backed away from him. She attempted to look into his eyes while he spoke but the hood over his eyes was starting to lead her to believe that his eyes was as dark and arrogant as he was. With each word, she felt her heart jump in fear.

"I've worked alone all this time because I didn't want to end up like you. A leader who can't let herself be scared of what's to come and lets her past haunt her present. You're no leader Pataki; you're just as terrified as they are. You just think you're too ballsy to show it. When it's the opposite. You're too afraid they'll figure you out."

She froze.

"You think you know me, don't you?"

"I do, in fact. I've known you since we were three."

"A lot of people have. It's a small neighborhood."

"Is that why you have your bow around your ankle? Keeping that Swiss Army knife in place. Kept you out of trouble all these times."

She scratched her ankle with her other foot, ashamed of her apparently obvious hiding spot.

"Why won't you tell me who you are?"

"But guessing is so much more fun."

"Usually there would be hints in a guessing game."

"I guess I'm just not up to playing by the rules, just like you."

It was at that moment that she caught a tiny glimpse at the eyes behind this man who seemed to know everything about her, even her deepest secrets. The deepest shade of green. She had seen those eyes before. They filled her with hope, made her feel safe, drove her crazy, made her fall in love. She reached up and pushed the edge of the hoodie back before the man had any chance of protecting himself. She fell backwards in shock.

"Arnold…you're…"

"Alive? Yea, I'd like to think so."

He smiled and extended a hand to help her from of the ground.

"You've been alive this whole time, helping me and everyone else. Why haven't you come here sooner?"

"Like you said, I'm better at being alone."

"You didn't used to be."

He sighed.

"After you have seen as much as I have in the past two weeks, Helga, a lot changes in you. I might actually have found a dark side in me."

"A dark side to our bright, sun-shiny, happy-go-lucky Arnold? I don't believe it."

"Then I guess I'll have to explain myself."

He walked towards the back door and turned back to Helga.

"You coming?"

She nudged him out of the way and walked in the back door. Phoebe sat on the couch, attempting to clean her knife while Gerald put his arms around her. She sat in between his legs, furiously working to get the dried up blood off her knife and felt a head resting on her shoulders. She grinned. Meanwhile, Sid and Curly were sitting on the floor with a deck of cards that Sid had managed to find in one of the drawers in the living room. Helga walked into the room and stood in the doorway.

"Helga, you okay?" Sid asked her.

"We have a visitor."

She watched Phoebe clench the knife tightly out of the corner of her eye and moved out of the way to let the person behind her move into the room. With a quick wink to Helga, Arnold removed the hood from his head and watched his friends stare in shock. Gerald was the first to get up and hug Arnold.

"Arnold, my man. You have no idea the things that I thought happened to you."

"Good to see that I was missed, somewhat." He laughed.

"You've been the guy who has been saving us all this time."

"Damn right I have."

"Where have you been Arnold, besides lurking in the shadows."

Arnold looked back at Helga, who remained emotionless in the doorway_. So much for expressing her feelings to the group._ Arnold turned back to the group and started to tell the story of how he managed to get out.

* * *

_When the whole zombie thing started, it managed to get into the boarding house pretty quickly. Luckily for my parents and grandparents, they were taking a trip to San Lorenzo again for two weeks so they hadn't been hit. I was left in charge of the boarding house and all the boarders until they returned. It didn't take very long for me to realize that I was in a house of zombies. All the boarders had gotten attacked rather quickly, not really suspecting of it. In order to make it out of there, I had to kill them all. It was hard, because these people had been my family for so long, helping me out with all of my problems and vise versa. We were a family. _

_It's interesting the lengths that you have to go through in order to survive. I love these people dearly. But in times like these, I'd rather not get bitten by a man who lived in my house and wasn't my blood relative. I didn't want to get bit in general. So I managed to use a fire ax to get through most of them. I remember being soaked in blood, the fear that I had, the endless nights of not being able to sleep because of what I had done. There was always that voice that kept saying that I needed to do it. That it's a world where only the strongest are going to survive, the others will have to fend for themselves. For once in your life, think about yourself before others. It's a matter of life and death._

_It might be the reason that I've hid alone all this time. Because that something in my brain is telling me to fight for myself this time and not for others, which is a different concept for me. But I can't let a person who has been fighting go down, that's why I saved Sid and Gerald before, and Rhonda and Curly, and Helga. It's because even though I was trying to listen to that other voice in my head, there's still a part of me that can't help but help a person out and I'm glad I didn't lose that aspect of me. What would I be without it?_

* * *

It was around 2 in the morning when everyone decided to fall asleep in the living room. Except for Helga who decided to sit outside on her front step. She knew she wasn't getting sleep anytime soon. Not with the nightmares that rambled and rampaged uncontrollably in her head. She leaned against a banister and looked on the results of the onslaught from earlier and sighed. She recognized her neighbor laying in front of his house, Lila across the street with her head one way and her body another. Even if she wasn't a big fan of either of these people, they didn't deserve to die the way that they had.

"Hey there Pataki."

Helga looked up at him.

"Since when do you call me Pataki, and since when do you lie straight to everyone's faces?"

"Lie, dear Helga, I don't know what you're…"

"Save it Arnold-o, you realize you're talking to the Queen of Bullshitting here. That was a pretty sappy story."

"I'm still the same guy."

"You might be, but that whole voice inside of your head think is a little stronger than you think."

"Some people react to bad things differently, whether it's darker or not at all."

Helga shook her head.

"There's something you aren't telling me."

"I'd like to say the same for you too."

"What do you remember from that night?" She felt the words burst out of her mouth and silently cursed at herself.

"The night with the boarders? I just told that one."

"No, the night with this."

She reached for her ankle and drew out her knife.

"Oh, that night."

He looked down at the street.

"It was the only night that you openly admitted your feelings to me. Not like feeling feelings, but your general being to me. It was different."

It was Helga's turn to look away from him.

"So you remember?"

"I might remember it a little differently than you did…"

* * *

_Arnold had only wanted to escape the craziness that was the boarding house. His grandma was painting a mural in their living room and had demanded the rest of the family join in on the "fun". He had managed to escape before they had found him. After sitting in a local coffee shop for about 2 hours on his computer filling out college applications, he decided it was probably a good idea to be heading home. For a night in June, it was certainly warmer than he expected it to be. He enjoyed it and decided to spend his time home staring up at the clear sky, since it was only a couple feet away from his house. Until he ran into someone._

_As they both fell to the ground, he noticed that it was someone that he used to run into all the time, but didn't see as much anymore around the hallways at schools. They used to be fairly close to each other but over the past several years, Arnold had barely seen her. _

"_Helga? You okay?"_

"_Yea…fine." She squeaked._

_He was used to hearing an insult after bumping into her like that and braced himself but no other words came out of her mouth. She looked completely startled. As she started to run away, Arnold grabbed her arm and spun her around._

"_Helga, what is going on? You clearly look upset."_

"_I'm fine, Arnold. Really, I just need to go for a run is all."_

_He felt himself tighten his grip around Helga's arm. She cringed slightly._

"_Tell me, please."_

_He heard her sigh as she turned to him. The first thing that he noticed was the fear in her eyes. His thoughts and worries about her kept buzzing around in his head but he wanted to remain as calm as he possibly could, for her._

"_You're gonna think I'm a complete freak or a psychopath or something."_

"_I'm not. I..."_

"_Don't promise. Cause you will."_

_Arnold watched Helga sit on his front steps and went to sit next to her. As she tried to figure out the words she wanted to say, he watched her hands twitch and heard her voice shakily start to find the words._

"_My dad got drunk and was trying to hit me and Miriam. So I…I cut him… with a knife when he got too close and ran out of the house."_

_Arnold had no idea how to respond. She stabbed her father with a knife? Sure, there was domestic abuse going on in her house, but a knife? He watched her search through her pockets and pull out what looked like an old fashioned Swiss Army knife, like a knife that his grandfather would have used when we was in the war. She opened it to show the flecks of blood on the top edge of the blade. Arnold couldn't help but look at her, turn his attention back to the knife and then back to her. She was struggling to hold back tears and kept trying to blink them away. He did the only thing that he knew would comfort her. He pulled her into a hug and didn't let go. She openly cried onto his shoulder._

"_You…you don't think…"_

"_No. I don't think you're crazy or a freak. You were defending yourself and your mom in the only way you knew would work. I don't condone it in any way and think that there probably could have been another way…"_

_He heard her sigh as he let go over her._

"_Always like you to question my humanity."_

"_I'm not questioning your humanity, Helga. You've been through a lot. How come you didn't tell anyone this was happening to you? And how long has it been?"_

"_Since I was 14… and I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want the pity card being played on me like it is now. I didn't want people to know that I had these problems going on, I just thought that one day, I'd be able to escape them. I'm almost a senior in high school, Arnold. I just need to finish the last year and I'm free forever from him."_

"_It's been four years?"_

"_I was absent a lot because of the bruises and the cuts. Too embarrassed to walk into school with black eyes. My reputation would be ruined if I walked into school with a shiner on my face. It would look like someone could actually get to me."_

"_Your reputation was more important to you than your safety?"_

"_At the time…yes…"_

_Arnold put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to his chest._

"_Well…there's nothing that I can do to change how you felt in the past…but I can hope to change the future..."_

_Helga stared up at him._

"_How?"_

"_Just by being here when you need me. For anything that might be bugging you, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem to you. It's the least I can do."_

"_But why Arnold, I've done nothing but picked on you for the last 14 years."_

"_Cause I care about you, I don't want to see you getting hurt, Helga."_

_She stared down at the knife and back into Arnold's eyes._

"_Do you promise to tell me if something is bugging you?"_

_She hesitated and then nodded._

"_I…I promise." She stammered._

"_Good."_

_He continued to let her cry into his chest. It was the first time that he had seen Helga like this, so innocent and afraid. It was astonishing, but he also found it very brave of her to let herself out in the open like that. Especially to him. He kissed her forehead as she started to calm her sobs._

"_I don't know what I'd do without you Arnold."_

"_You'd be incredibly different, I guess. No hidden feelings."_

_She leaned away from him._

"_Are you talking about…"_

"_Yea, I guess I am. But I don't want to talk about it now. Maybe someday soon. Not after everything tonight. For now, let's just get you inside, I'm sure there is an extra room you can stay in for the night or you can stay in my room. I'm not letting you go back there."_

"_What about…"_

"_We'll figure out everything in the morning."_

_Arnold took Helga's hand and guided her up the steps and into the boarding house. After a few minutes of getting past all of the family and attempting to avoid talking about Helga's problems at home, he brought her upstairs and let her fall asleep. As she slept, Arnold couldn't help but wonder what exactly he was going to say to her the next morning, especially the part about her feelings for him in the past and if she still had those same feelings._

* * *

"We never had that talk that we were supposed to."

"What talk?"

"After I brought you back into the boarding house, told you we would clear up everything in the morning. You ran out before I woke up. And I haven't seen you since."

"I guess I've been avoiding you. I wasn't ready for what you had to say."

"I'm guessing you aren't ready now."

"If we make it out of this mess, we can talk."

"You promise, Pataki?"

He grinned and she playfully shoved him in return.

"Promise."

* * *

For the first time in weeks, Helga was ready to take on anything. And she knew today was the day that everything was going to end. She was going to make it that way. She walked to the edge of town and stared at the glass wall blocking the way out and banged on it, trying to catch the attention of one of the black suited men outside. As the man strutted over and dropped the edge of his sunglasses to look at the pale girl with a crossbow on the other side, she banged the glass again.

"If we kill these zombies, ALL of these zombies today and survive without getting attacked, can we get out of here?"

The man stared at her in confusion.

"Do I really need to repeat myself? I said…"

"Look little miss, I hear what you said, okay. I'm trying to figure out if that's possible for only one girl to do."

"I'm not alone in here. I'm just the only one who thought of showing up here to talk to you about it. There are six of us in here."

"Six of you?"

"You heard me right, six. Now if you heard what I said, go ask whoever is in charge of you if we can make this happen. Cause frankly, I'm not dealing with another day of this fucking bullshit, understand?"

The man rolled his eyes and walked back of to his partner who proceeded to call a number on his cell phone. After an hour or so came and went, a large screen and a computer were placed in front of the glass bubble in front of Helga. A man was on the other end of the video call. She felt herself gasp; it was the President of the United States.

"So you're the little girl that thinks she and her friends can eliminate the zombie population of Hillwood in one day."

"You'd be correct, Mr. President. We've already managed to kill at least 60% of the zombies in two weeks and between the six of us; the other 40% shouldn't be too hard. What do you say, do we have a deal?"

"If you can do this, we'll let you out but if not, you're in there until we can examine you for any future outbreaks."

"So what you're saying is, one day all the rest of the zombies or we become your little government experiments?"

"Sounds like what I'm saying."

She hesitated and then grinned.

"Mr. President, you have a deal."

"Good, then it starts at the stroke of midnight tonight. You have until midnight of tomorrow night. 24 hours."

With that, the screen clicked off and Helga watched the men drag it away.

"I'll see you tomorrow." She sneered at the black-suited man before walking back towards their hide out.

"Guys, we have 24 hours to hunt and kill the rest of the zombies in the city if we want the chance to make it out of here."

The gang turned to face Helga who had walked through the front door and leaned against the doorframe in the living room where they were all currently sitting.

"24 hours?"

"24 hours starting tonight at midnight and we have to be done and alive by the stroke of midnight tomorrow or the spell will be broken."

She grinned. She watched the corners of Phoebe's mouth hitch upwards. The rest of the boys stared at her in pure and utter confusion.

"Come on guys, Cinderella? Ring any bells?"

Not one of the boys said a word.

"Forget it."

"So we still have today too?" Sid managed to sputter out.

"They didn't say we couldn't start today."

"So then what's our plan Captain?"

"For now, we're gonna split up and each group take half the city and canvass and kill as many zombies as we can. Find the places where zombies seem to go the most and kill them there. We already know that downtown is a hot spot. So Phoebe, Gerald and Sid will head there first. Arnold, Curly and I will head uptown and see what we can find."

As everyone scrambled around the house to collect what they needed, Phoebe stopped Helga before she walked back outside.

"Helga. Good luck."

"Pheebs, we don't need luck. We're going to get out of this."

Phoebe hugged her tightly as Helga, at first, blankly responded but then returned the hug. They let go and Helga watched Phoebe, Gerald and Sid walk out the door. With a quick salute to Gerald and a fist bump from Sid, she turned to Arnold and Curly who were waiting for her response.

"Let's go kick some zombie ass."

* * *

And that lovely readers, is the end of Chapter 3.

_**Some Author Notes as you will:**_

***OMG ARNOLD IS THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER OMG*** Yes, yes, you're all right in being hopeful that it was Arnold. I made him such a smart-ass too, it's wonderful. I promise more banter between the two of them next chapter.

***RHONDA D:*** Please don't hate me for killing Rhonda and making Curly sad. But I wanted another scene with Curly and Helga, considering that besides Arnold and Helga, Curly is my third favorite character to write about. He's something else that Curly. But the aspect of Curly and Helga being friends and being able to relate to the whole unrequited love thing is something that I **LOVE** writing about. And the whole Rhonda and Curly scene was depressing. Yeah, I know, my bad. But hey, it makes for good writing right? _*avoids objects being thrown at*_

***THE GOVERNMENT?*** I haven't mentioned that they are entrapped in a giant bubble yet, have I? I meant to in the earlier chapters but I kept forgetting. I kinda like the whole idea of Helga and the gang versus the government. It adds a whole lot more pressure to the gang. 24 hours to kill the rest of the city without dying? Yikes, talk about pressure. But the government will come more into play in the next chapter, especially with the whole 24 hours left thing.

And last but not least

***THE KNIFE STORY*** Cute right? I wanted to do Arnold's side of it just because it seemed like a good idea to put how Arnold felt that night. I mean it's the first night that Helga really opened up to him, important. But what was said will DEFINITELY come into play in Chapter 4. Expect a HUGE Arnold and Helga scene about confronting Helga's old feelings. Or are they new feelings? _Hmmmmmm..._

* * *

_**So what to look forward to in Chapter 4**_

The Last 24 Hours

Government Arguments

Arnold and Helga scenes galore!

A very cute scene between Phoebe and Gerald

And Sid's back story finally gets some more action, but what could it be?

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter and review!**

_Love Always, Kate _


	4. READ THIS! UPDATED INFORMATION!

Why hello there readers!

So I have an update on Chapter 4.

I honestly haven't started it yet. **Hides**

But it WILL be up hopefully by this weekend. If not, feel free to private message me telling me to get my butt in shape. I've been doing so many things this week that I really haven't got a whole lot of time to start. And there's also that thing called Writer's Block.

But I thought as a treat. I'd answer some of questions that people had put in the reviews along with questions from Songs of Hillwood. And give my thoughts on your reviews!

First, thank you all so much for the positive reviews! They are all really awesome and inspiring. It keeps me wanting to write more. So if you review, I'll write. Our relationship works pretty well I'd like to think.

So let the madness begin!

When is the next Songs of Hillwood chapter going up?

Songs of Hillwood: Chapter 6 will be up by tomorrow night. Because I wrote that ahead of time. It is also very short. But sometimes, the shorter the better, especially when I'm supposed to be finishing another story. Heh. Whoops. But I shall give you all a hint. It involves Arnold and Helga, but you also see Gerald and Phoebe in there a lot too.

When is the next I Will Blow the Cold Away coming up?

Hopefully this weekend. D: Most likely closer to Saturday rather than Sunday. I just need to get through the battle and a hard-core government part and then the rest of it should be easy. I'm hoping. **crosses fingers**

What made the people of Hillwood turn into zombies? Do they know if it was the water, air or a government experiment?

I was gonna reveal it in Chapter 4, but it is a lot better to explain now and it will be easier for me to dive into Chapter 4 with everyone knowing beforehand. The people of Hillwood were turned into zombies by a disease that came from South America. The first zombie actually brought it back with them when they were vacationing on an uncharted island off the coast of Brazil. Their ship got lost there for a while; go figure right? When they finally make it back home, they start noticing all these weird changes and one of them goes to a doctor and ends up biting them, turning the doctor into a zombie. And the rest of the process, until everyone is at the point of the story that is currently taking place. And all this happened in two weeks! But I will add in Chapter 4 the reveal of the first zombie. As of the moment in the story, the government knows it's some kind of disease; they're attempting to figure it out. Helga and the gang have no idea where this all started from.

Why didn't Helga tell Phoebe about Bob and Miriam?

Helga is the kind of person that I'd like to think keeps some things to herself. And for the first couple of years that she had been through this, she didn't tell a soul. But then she tells Curly because Curly is telling her a secret from his past and she decides to open up to him and tell him about her father. Also, Phoebe and Gerald are dating. There's another two reasons Helga didn't tell Phoebe. Phoebe was spending too much time with Gerald and not a whole lot with her and if she did decide to open up to her, she could tell Gerald, who would tell Arnold. That is not what she wants.

My favorite question I've been asked: What did Arnold write in her yearbook? (Coming from Chapter 1 of Songs of Hillwood)

To be honest, I think that Arnold, as dense as he can be, probably wrote something along the lines of them being really close friends. Probably go through a lot of the different memories that they had together, not anyone of the ones that are in the story, cause he thinks of them afterwards. But fun and happy friendship memories. Arnold wasn't going to put anything about the FTI incident because he was trying to forget it up until he realized that Helga had really been in love with him. He really did think it was a heat of the moment thing and just let it slide. Silly boy.

What are you gonna do after you finish I Will Blow the Cold Away?

More Songs of Hillwood of course! But I do actually have another project on the back burner waiting until I finish this one and I will start it after I finish this story, maybe I'll do a couple more Songs of Hillwood before I start this new story. Who knows. But since I'm a nice person, I'll give some hints. The main character is Helga, because she is my favorite if you haven't figured out by now. But this is a lot more of the other characters in this. You will see a lot of Sid, a lot of Curly, and a lot of Phoebe and Gerald. As for Arnold, I'm not sure how present he is gonna be in this one yet, but I'll figure it out.

Thanks for dealing with my inability to write more. Ehhh, writer's block kills man. But leave me some more questions! Whether it's about this story, Songs of Hillwood, my new story, or about me and my writing, I'd be more than happy to answer them!

Love Always, Kate


	5. Blow Me Away

**THE FINAL CHAPTER. OH DEAR GOD.  
**

****I'm not gonna say much in this beginning part because it would give stuff away!

But enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Blow Me Away**

* * *

Quick Recap:

"Guys, we have 24 hours to hunt and kill the rest of the zombies in the city if we want the chance to make it out of here."

"So we still have today too?" Sid managed to sputter out.

"They didn't say we couldn't start today."

"So then what's our plan Captain?"

"For now, we're gonna spilt up and each group take half the city and canvass and kill as many zombies as we can. Find the places where zombies seem to go the most and kill them there. We already know that downtown is a hot spot. So Phoebe, Gerald and Sid will head there first. Arnold, Curly and I will head uptown and see what we can find."

As everyone scrambled around the house to collect what they needed, Phoebe stopped Helga before she walked back outside.

"Helga. Good luck."

"Pheebs, we don't need luck. We're going to get out of this."

Phoebe hugged her tightly as Helga, at first, blankly responded but then returned the hug. They let go and Helga watched Phoebe, Gerald and Sid walk out the door. With a quick salute to Gerald and a fist bump from Sid, she turned to Arnold and Curly who were waiting for her response.

"Let's go kick some zombie ass."

* * *

**_24 hours left._**

As Helga, Arnold and Curly walked the streets of uptown Hillwood, Helga felt a wave of panic over her body. She tightened her grip on her crossbow.

"You okay, Pataki?" Arnold asked.

"I'm fine, Football Head."

"It sure doesn't look like you're fine. You look a little tense."

"I said I'm fine. It's just…"

Curly stopped a head of them.

"It's too quiet here guys."

"Exactly what I was going to say."

Helga made a face at Arnold as he attempted not to laugh.

"There should be some kind of sound. Moaning or whatever sound that zombies make." Curly squatted down onto the ground.

"I don't hear anything."

"Neither do I."

Arnold and Helga looked around the empty buildings while Curly put his ear to the asphalt. They watched as he stood up and turned to them.

"They're coming."

"You got that from listening to the street?" Arnold asked.

"Boy Scouts." Curly grinned.

"Whatever works, man."

"Well, while you two knuckleheads are playing Scouts, I'm gonna go kill some zombies, who's in?"

Both boys loaded their shotguns and followed Helga down the street towards the zombie hoard.

* * *

**_24 hours left._**

Phoebe pressed the knife into the skull of an unsuspecting zombie as Gerald and Sid aimed shot after shot into the hearts and heads of each of the zombies that were heading towards them.

"Of course Helga would give us the busier part of town. These zombies are everywhere!"

"Not a good time to question Helga's judgment, Sid. She's probably just as swamped with zombies as we are."

They continued firing openly into the crowd as zombie after zombie dropped down dead in the street ahead of them. Gerald attempted to keep shooting until he heard a click from his gun.

"I'm out! We need to move. Sid, cover my back, let's go."

He pushed Phoebe in front of him as they ran, with Sid still firing shots.

"What happens when I run out?"

"We run faster. That's what happens. Now move!"

The three teenagers continued to run back to their base. They were surprised to find Arnold, Helga and Curly already back at home base, fighting zombies that had managed to follow them home. Gerald sighed.

"Looks like this is it."

"Do you think this is all of them?"

"We will have to search after all of these are dead. But I don't think so."

Phoebe felt herself groan and jumped out of the way to slice the neck of one of the zombies that was closing in on Sid. Not watching where he was going, Sid toppled over and rolled back up into a crouching position.

"You okay?"

"Yea…I'm…" He managed to wheeze through heavy breathing.

"We should probably keep moving."

He nodded as they continued to slash through decaying zombie flesh and towards home base. They all ran into the house and slammed the door behind them, moving heavy objects like the refrigerator, oven and several bookcases in front of the doorways. They were safe, for now. They all collapsed on the floor and groaned.

"I think I got zombie guts on me" Sid wiped the bits of intestines off his hat and onto the floor. They all moved away from it, partially because of how gross it was and partially because of the smell.

"I can't believe that we only have 24 hours to do all of this."

"I'm just wondering if we can."

"I'm nervous."

"Me too."

Helga looked at the worried faces of her fellow fighters and stood up.

"Let's worry about time once we get closer to our limit ending. For now, let's try to get some sleep and food into us. If we are gonna get even close to getting out, we're gonna need the rest now."

She walked towards the fridge that was blocking the front door, opened it and pulled out a couple cans of baked beans and some bread.

"Who's hungry?"

* * *

**_16 hours left_**

Helga stared back into the sky. She noticed she had been doing that a lot lately. Whenever she had some time to think for herself in this crazy world that she was living; she used to do it when she was little too. She would spend hours looking up at the stars on the roof of her house and watch the night sky flicker and sparkle. After a crazy ambush like the one they had before, her doubt was starting to kick in. What if they didn't kill all the zombies in time? What if they were trapped in this giant glass bubble for the rest of their lives like lab rats? She shuddered at the thought and attempted to blow some of the stray hairs from battle out of her eyes. She felt a light touch on her shoulder and flinched in defense before turning up to the dark shadow and the same pair of green eyes that used to haunt her dreams. Now she couldn't even sleep enough to get those safe dreams back into her head.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You've been out here a while. What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing. I just like sitting out here."

"Now I know that's a bullshit lie. Your face says it all."

She covered her face with her hands.

"From the queen of bullshitting herself, an easy lie? I'm ashamed."

She smiled and took her hands away from her face, turning back up to the sky.

"You know I'm scared too. Hey, look at me."

He spun her around as she felt his piercing stare. Emeralds. Helga had always compared his eyes to emeralds. Those emerald eyes staring into her pale blue ones. She rubbed her eyes and noticed the wet streaks staining her fingertips. She felt the words creeping up her throat and turned away. She was surprised to hear herself whispering a response.

"I'm terrified."

"You're what now?"

He pulled himself closer to her and put his ear close to her mouth.

"I'm terrified, okay? Terrified that I put us in something that we can't accomplish. Terrified that I'm going to get someone else killed. I thought I was scared before but it's nothing compared to this. I've never been this scared in my life and I don't know what to do."

He hugged her tightly and brushed away some of the tears that were creeping down her face.

"It's okay…"

"I'm supposed to be the leader, fearless and all that other garbage. If I'm scared like this, how are we gonna make it out?" He sighed.

"We all know how tough you are Helga, this is something you can easily prove. But every other emotion that you have makes you human. You're allowed to be scared sometimes and the others are going to feel a lot better if they know that you feel the same way that they do."

"But I've built up this ego…this reputation of being tough, a former bully for God's sake! I can't just change from that."

"When we get out of here…you'll be able to try. You can try to open up to people and let yourself out. I know that there is another side of you, it's about time that everyone else got to see the other Helga too."

"You really believe that we are going to get out of this?"

"I do. I have faith in you…I… I always have."

She felt the corners of her mouth turn up as she rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her and they sat like that, staring up at the sky without another word.

* * *

**_12 hours left_**

"How close are they?"

"Those kids? They're surprising close from what we have heard. We had a helicopter fly overhead. They're fighting and fighting hard."

"How much time is left?"

"We're on 12 hours now."

"We have to determine how this started. How did we lose an entire city in over 2 weeks?"

"We're trying to determine that now, Mr. President. We believe that a family from the town spent a spring vacation in South America and got stuck on an uncharted island off the coast of Brazil. You remember sir, that family who was rescued not too long ago."

"You mean the Horowitzes? I remember the story, a family that got unlucky during a storm and their ship went crashing into some rocks, I didn't realize that they were from Hillwood."

"Yes sir, two adults and their 18 year old son. From what I know, all of them are dead, sir."

"Who are the other 6 kids that have survived?"

"We don't know. But we can look out for two children sir. One boy and one girl. A Helga Pataki, as reported by her sister, Olga Pataki and her husband and an Arnold…Arnold…the name here is smudged…but reported as to be in the city by his parents and grandparents."

"Do we know how it was spread?"

"We are determining…"

At the moment, one agent slammed open the doors and rushed into the Oval Office as the President and the head of the FBI met in secrecy.

"There is a request to speak to the President."

"From who?"

"The Hillwood survivors, Sir."

He rose from his chair and over to a couch to prepare to talk to them.

"Start the transmission."

As the agent spoke quickly into his walkie-talkie, an image appeared on the screen where two teenagers were trapped behind a glass bubble.

"Hello little lady."

"Hello Mr. President."

"How is the mission going?"

"Rather successful, I'd like to think."

Her partner nodded. The President looked at the screen in curiosity as he wondered just how these children had managed to survive these past two weeks on little food and water. The agent whispered something in his ear as he kept his eyes focused on the screen. He nodded.

"We need your names."

"Our names, Sir?"

"All of the people that are with you right now. The Hillwood Six." The girl took a deep breath.

"We'll give you our names in exchange for some information."

"Information?"

"We want to know what's going. How this happened. All that other stuff. We have a deal?"

"You seem to like making a lot of deals."

"I'm the daughter of a business man. Deals are a family thing."

"Then we have a deal."

"Information first. Names after. Cause we can just run away and there's no way you're coming in here to get us."

He felt himself smile. For a girl that age, she was awfully clever…and rather demanding. He sighed.

"Fine, the information first."

"Let's start then, shall we?"

He motioned for the two FBI agents to come towards the screen as they sat in between him. There was a slight pause before one of the agents addressed them.

"We believe that one of the families in Hillwood contracted a rare but deadly disease while traveling across the coast of South America. They got stuck on an uncharted island and were recently found. Two adults and a 18 year old named the Horowitzes are the ones that we believe started the disease."

"It would be Eugene…" the girl mumbled.

"Eugene?"

"Eugene and his family are complete klutzes. They would bring a life threatening disease back with them."

"It would explain why he was acting so weird his first day back."

He watched the two teenagers stare at each other and something seemed to click for them.

"Didn't we walk him to the doctor's that day?"

"Yea, cause he passed out in the middle of our baseball game at Gerald Field."

"And Sheena's aunt was taking care of him that day since she moved from PS.118 to her own office."

"And Sheena said her aunt was sick the next day and Sheena and her family were going to visit her."

"And then Sheena got sick and Nadine went to visit her…"

"It all makes sense now."

The two suited men started at the computer screen as the teenagers continued to bounce facts off of each other.

"So you're saying that people got sick before they were bit."

"No one noticed it until they got bit. It was already too late by the time most people figured out it was a zombie attack and got themselves bit."

"The first week was when everyone got hit with the sickness, a good chunk of the people in Eugene's area got sick and then it spread in two days and then all the sudden, zombies."

The President watched one of his agents taking notes on a sheet of paper behind him. He turned back to the screen.

"We need names."

"Sid Parker, Thaddeus Gammelthorpe, Phoebe Heyerdahl, Gerald Johanssen, Arnold Shortman and Helga Pataki."

"Sir, two of the kids reported are in that group."

"Reported?"

"Two families reported that they had family members in the city. Since we haven't brought this into the national media yet, the families that found out got their information straight from the kids themselves. Yet I have no idea how they got in contact with anyone outside of that dome."

"Which families?"

"Shortman and Pataki. We haven't anything from the other four families."

There was a smile on both the teenagers' faces.

"You can tell them that we're okay then."

"You must be…"

"Helga G. Pataki, at your service, sir." She shot a quick wink and the boy next to her smiled.

"Which makes him Arnold Shortman then."

"Yes, sir."

"Right then."

"Well now that we're acquainted, Mr. President. I believe we have some zombies to kill."

"I believe you do as well."

"See you in 12 hours then, when we're out of here."

The image on the screen clicked off as he sat, contemplating the past events.

"What's our next move, Mr. President?"

"We wait. We wait another 12 hours to see if they survive."

* * *

**_8 hours left_**

She slammed the front door open and heard a rumbling in the kitchen. Curly was attempting to stab open a can of corn with a knife. She laughed and brought out a can opener from the other side of the kitchen.

"We may be barely living, but it doesn't mean we don't have the equipment to get things open."

He sheepishly grinned and carried the can outside. She laid her head onto the kitchen counter and sighed, trying to take in the information that she had just heard. She had no idea how to tell everyone. How no one really knew that they were in this kind of trouble, that the only people whose families were looking for them had been hers and Arnold's. She heard her stomach grumbling. She decided that she would have to think about this over food. She sat with some pieces of bread and attempted to come up with a plan and was failing. She grumbled, throwing wads of paper around the kitchen and decided to check on the rest of the house.

Helga attempted to walk into the living room when she noticed the way that Phoebe and Gerald were quietly talking. Phoebe was curled into his shoulder blade concentrating on cleaning the blood on her glasses while Gerald stroked her hair and smiled. She felt herself filling with envy. Not because she wanted either of them, she just wanted what they had. And with one specific person. The fact that she couldn't see herself like that with anyone else but him terrified her. She was so determined to be with Arnold that she didn't want or feel the need to be with anyone else. If only he felt that same way. She sighed and continued to watch the two lovebirds from her post.

"You okay, babe?"

"I'm fine…just…nervous."

"Me too."

They sat in silence before Gerald gained the courage to find the words he needed.

"What are you going to do if we get out of here?"

"I…I haven't really thought about it yet... maybe I'll go to college, stay with some relatives in Japan, or maybe make it out on my own. What about you?"

"I honestly only have one thing on my mind."

"Does it involve food?"

"Okay now there are two things." Phoebe smiled before putting her glasses back on.

"Then what's the other thing?"

"I wanna do whatever you want to do. No matter where you go, I'll go. I wanna get married and have kids together and grow old, side by side, me and you, for the rest of my life."

Helga watched the tears of happiness running down Phoebe's face as she hugged him.

"I want that too. To be with you."

"Then make me a promise, when we get out of here, we're getting married. The first thing that we do when we get out."

"I promise."

They sealed their promise with a long kiss before Phoebe cuddled further into Gerald's shoulder and closed her eyes. He smiled and kissed her forehead before he closed his eyes as well. Helga slid further into the hallway and slumped down onto the floor and grinned like an idiot. Phoebe was going to get married! Her best friend was getting married to the love of her life and she couldn't be happier. Her head was buzzing with wedding ideas and gifts before she frowned. There was still that nagging point that they had to get out of this mess before any happy moments could happen for the couple. It only made her determination to get out of this that much stronger.

"I'm getting us through this for you, Pheebs. You deserve to be happy."

She hoisted herself back up and walked back into the kitchen to contemplate their final battle plans.

* * *

**_4 hours left_**

Helga wondered exactly what was going to happen to herself after this all ended. What exactly would she do? She guessed she'd go live with Olga and her new husband in Washington D.C. for a while. At least it was better than trying to figure everything out all on her own. She had overhead Curly and Sid having the same conversation as Phoebe and Gerald did. What they were going to do if they got. She remembered cringing at the word if. There was always that point that one of them might not make it out of here or maybe even more than one. She jumped up from her plans at the kitchen table and pushed them aside as she went to her thinking space. When she got there, she discovered that there was someone already there.

"Hey Football Head."

He turned around and smiled.

"Hey Pataki."

"What are you doing out here?"

"What you're usually doing out here. Smoking a cigarette and throwing rocks at unsuspecting children." He smirked.

"Not funny."

"I thought it was."

She rolled her eyes.

"No seriously, what made you come out here?"

"I'm just thinking. About what to do…"

"…If you get out of here?"

"No, when I get out of here."

She smiled and sat beside him.

"At least you have some faith that we are going to get out of here. Always the positive one.

"I still have my doubts, but my faith in us and my faith in you to get us out is a lot stronger than my doubts. So yea, you can say I'm the positive one."

"Everyone else keeps saying if…if we get out."

"I've noticed. Don't let them get to you."

She yawned.

"So what are you going to do?"

"When we get out?"

"Yea, I wanna know. I've heard everyone else's stories."

He turned to her and smiled.

"I want to find the perfect someone and spend the rest of my life with them. Go to the same college, live in Hillwood again eventually and have a family. I just want to live the life that I wanted to before without ever having to ever think of this again."

"That sounds nice. I hope it works out."

"Me too."

They looked away from each other quickly.

"Hey Arnold?"

"Yea?"

"What happens if we don't make it out?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like…if we somehow didn't make it out…or we, you know." She made a cutting motion across her throat.

"I'm not sure. What do you want it to mean?"

"Well if we somehow don't make it out, I need a couple questions answered."

"As long as you answer mine, I'm sure we can work this out."

Helga hesitated and Arnold looked at her curiously. She ran through possible options of phrasing her question quickly in her head, but ended up being completely blunt with it. Betrayed my her own mouth.

"What if I told you I'd been in love with you since we were three years old?"

"You mean since the day we met?" She nodded.

"What would you do?"

"Since the day we met. You mean the day where I saw you in the rain, covered in mud and offered my umbrella. The day where I told you I liked your bow…"

"…Cause it was pink like my pants…"

"That day then?" She nodded again.

"You've loved me since then, without stopping? Even after the whole FTI incident and the fact that the both of us were dating through middle and high school, after everything we've been through. All the fights and drama. You've still been in love with me?"

Helga sheepishly grinned.

"I'd have to say that…I…"

"Yes?"

"I…I realized that… I've been in love with you for a while too."

"You have?"

"Since the day we met."

"Seriously?"

"I just was trying to hold it back, for whatever reason. But it was love at first sight. Every little crazy thing you did growing up drove me crazy but made me stay around longer. You were there for me whenever something didn't work out for me, you constantly teased me when things seemed to be going right, you were my competition, my enemy, my friend and everything in my life, good or bad, has revolved around you. And I wouldn't want it any other way. So I'll say this now, if we don't make it out of here, just know this, I love you Helga. With everything I got in me."

Helga found herself not being able to find the words to respond back to him. She was completely and totally dumbfounded. Arnold had been in love with her this whole time? Before she knew it, she felt the stupid smile forming on her face and turned to see Arnold breathe a quick sigh of relief before he leaned over and hugged her. And for right now, that's all Helga wanted. To be in his arms and for him to love her the same way that she loved him. She felt her own tears of joy sliding down her face and he brushed them away with the side of his hand.

"With all this crying, people are going to actually think you're getting emotional."

She smirked at him and lightly banged her head against his shoulder.

"You've got a lot to learn, Football Head."

"Whatever you say, Helga."

She looked up at him and stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed.

"You're damn right whatever I say…"

She was cut off by a kiss. A kiss that literally took her breath away. She was stunned when she felt him smiling against her lips and it forced her to smile in return. She hadn't kissed Arnold since the night at FTI. And to know what it was like to kiss Arnold again was something that she had been hoping for. To feel his soft lips against her own was something that she had always been dreaming and wishing for. And now it had finally come true. She pulled away and sighed comfortably into his chest. For once, everything seemed to be at peace until she heard a moan.

"Arnold? Was that you?"

"Was what me?"

"That moan."

"I didn't moan…"

She looked over the edge of the roof and noticed the swarm of zombies outside of the door. How did no one else catch on to this? The repeated banging on the door made her heart sink deeper into her stomach. She mumbled curses as she dragged Arnold down from the attic window and through the house towards the front door. The rest of them had been madly scrambling around the house, attempting to find their equipment. They converged in the middle of the hallway as the zombies keep repeatedly shoving their decayed bodies into the front door, attempting to move the furniture that stood between them and their next victims. Helga gathered the gang together and shook off the nerves before addressing them.

"Guys, we have 2 hours left and I think I've got a plan to get us out in time."

* * *

**_2 hours left_**

It was as if she had been repeatedly punched in the stomach as she watched swarms heading from every different direction. No matter where she turned her head, there was a zombie swarm that seemed to close in on their home base. And they had thought that the fight before had been intense. This was indeed the end and she knew it. The last of the zombies or the last of them. She knew she had only two hours left and it was do or die. Kill or be killed. And she wanted to make it out. Bad.

She watched the expressions of her fellow fighters behind her as she stood in the doorway. All determined and fearless on the outside, but scared as all hell on the inside, just like her. But it was so easy for them to admit it, she could see it in their eyes, where they had no idea what she was really feeling. Or at least she thought they had no idea.

She heard the moans and groans getting louder as they kept advancing towards them. She turned to Arnold and looked for a sign of hope in his eyes. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly.

"You ready for this?"

"As ready as I'm ever going to be."

With that, Helga pulled out her crossbow and launched her friends into a charge down the front steps. They split up in different directions and slashed, shot and destroyed any of the zombies that crossed their path. Helga started to bark orders as the six remaining survivors continued to fight for their lives.

"Pheebs, lean right and stab as hard as you can. Gerald, you've got one at your left and behind."

She turned to look as the two other teenagers took her words and put them into action. She grinned. As long as she kept her cool, they could actually do this. They could actually finish this and survive it. She launched another bow into the heart of several zombies in front of her; sticking them all together and watching them fall in their stack to the asphalt. Arnold and Curly had teamed up and used their guns to fire at the zombies that seemed to be surrounding Phoebe, herself and Sid. She had to admit she had planned it well.

Arnold, Gerald and Curly were the alphas, a team that specialized in gun warfare and would use their weapons to shoot anything in their paths, as well as making sure that the betas were protected. She, Sid and Phoebe were the betas, and the best with their knife and bow ability. They attacked on the ground as the alphas attacked from higher up. She felt her panic slowly fading as she continued their attacking. Until she noticed Sid out of the corner of her eye and the zombie that was heading right for him.

"Sid! Right!"

Sid looked quickly to his right and froze, stabbing the zombie behind him without even looking. Helga grinned, almost impressed until she looked at the zombie that was heading right for him. Sid crouched to the ground and ran towards him.

"Sid!"

The Stinky zombie moaned and lunged after him as he dodged swipe after swipe of Stinky's hands.

"Stink! It's me, your old buddy! It's Sid! Remember me?"

The zombie moaned in response and launched another swipe at Sid's head. He ducked and rolled out of the way.

"Come on Stink, we're best friends! You wouldn't hurt me if you knew what you were doing. Please Stinky, you can break this!"

Helga watched in horror as Sid managed to keep dodging Stinky's attacks and watched the emotions drain from Sid's face in a matter of seconds. Frustration, fear and sadness as he aimed the bow at Stinky's heart.

"I'm…I'm so sorry...I shouldn't have left you like this. You're dead because of me. YOU HEAR THAT. YOU'RE DEAD BECAUSE OF ME."

Stinky lunged at him again as Sid shot the arrow. To Helga, it felt like it was in slow motion, the way the arrow spun and landed into the zombie's heart as he felt to the ground on top of Sid. She rushed over to him as the rest of them continued to fight.

"Sid! Sid, are you okay? Sid! Answer me damn it!"

She pushed the zombie off of him and knew that at least the zombie was dead. Stinky Peterson was no more and as sad as she was to lose another one of her friends, it was another zombie down that they needed in order to escape this glass hellhole. She attempted to find Sid's pulse and she looked for the bite marks along his neck, but there were none. She heard a sputter as she scrambled back in front of Sid. That was when she noticed the handle of a knife that had managed to lodge itself into his stomach. He was bleeding out and attempting to sputter words.

"Sid… You're bleeding…"

"I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"You didn't get bitten, you're just losing a lot of blood. We can help you."

"There's only two hours left. You guys need to get out. Just…"

"I'm not leaving another person to die! You understand me...I can't do it again."

"Helga, I don't think…"

"You're gonna come out of this alive. You hear me? You gotta hold on Sid. For Stinky. Live the life that Stinky couldn't."

"But it's my fault…"

"It's not your fault. And Stinky would say it wasn't your fault either. Please just hold on for us."

He coughed and carefully nodded.

"I'll try Helga."

She picked him up and carried him up to the top floor of their base and bandaged him.

"They're going to need you."

"And I'll help them once I'm done with you."

"Thank you."

She smiled and continued to bandage around Sid's waist.

"That should be good for now. We have one hour left and then we can get you some medical attention. Okay?"

"I'll be here, fighting in spirit."

Helga saluted him and ran back down the stairs towards their battlefield.

* * *

**_1 hour left_**

Helga stormed out of the house and sliced one of the upcoming zombies with Sid's knife. She was not looking to mess around right now. Arnold rushed to her side.

"Is he okay?"

"Sid's fine. At least for now."

She watched Arnold look down at her clothes and she followed his gaze.

"That's a lot of blood. Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine. Let's just keep going before someone else gets hurt."

They continued back to their battlefield as the zombie count was slowly diminishing. Helga knew there only had to be a couple of them left still standing and she only had an hour to find them all.

"Arnold, I need you to go to the edge of town and get a helicopter to look around the city and see if we're clear."

"You want me to go now? In the middle of all this?"

"You wanna get out or not?"

He took off in the opposite direction as Helga, Gerald, Curly and Phoebe continued the fight.

"Pheebs, I need you to stay with Sid."

"Got it."

"Gerald and Curly, we've got only a few left."

As the hour passed on, the Hillwood Six fought with the hearts and bodies. Helga watched as the rest of her friends continued to slash body after body and didn't realize the zombie that was making it's way towards her from behind. She turned quickly and slashed it's throat, but not before getting knocked down to the ground. As Helga fell towards the ground, she believed it was going to be the end for her and took it with dignity. She got everything she wanted in her life, someone that loved her, an adventure of a lifetime. It was all that she ever asked for.

Her head slammed against the curb as the dark night sky was the last thing that Helga saw.

* * *

All she could see was a white light. All she could hear was a voice that was trying to bring her away from it.

* * *

"Helga? Helga, please wake up."

She wanted to open her eyes but something was pulling her back.

"Baby sister, please open your eyes. I can't lose you, mommy and daddy."

Baby sister? Only one person called her baby sister. She opened her eyes and noticed the soft white lights of a hospital. She sat up with a start as Olga and her husband attempted to push her back to lying down.

"Olga. Where…where am I?"

"You're in a hospital, silly. In Washington D.C."

She was in D.C. They had made it out alive. Or at least she did.

"Where is everyone?"

At that moment, Phoebe and Gerald walked into Helga's room and smiled.

"Didn't think we'd see your eyes open again."

"We were so worried, Helga. Gerald saw that zombie almost kill you."

"It's lucky that you managed to get a hold of it before it bit you."

"And that Arnold was right there when another one showed up."

She felt her heart swell but then she looked at the couple sadly.

"Where is everyone else?"

"Curly is fine. He's getting his hand checked out, sliced it up pretty bad during the fight."

"What about Sid? And…"

Phoebe dropped her head to the floor. Gerald scratched the back of his neck. This didn't sound like good news.

"Sid's alive. But he's in a coma. Lost a lot of blood, but the doctor's are hopeful that he'll pull out of it like you did."

"I was in a coma?"

"Not a very long one, yet again you are Helga Pataki."

She smirked at Gerald as she turned her attention back to Phoebe.

"Arnold is with his parents."

"He's fine though?"

"Besides a little messed up after everything that happened with you? He's fine."

"Is he around?"

"He's down the hall, want us to get him?"

She nodded as they left the room. For the first time, Olga's husband spoke up.

"Maybe we should leave Helga for a little bit. Give her some alone time with her friends."

Olga nodded at her husband's suggestion as they left the room. Helga felt herself staring up at the florescent lights as the door creaked open again. And there he was. Her Arnold. She felt her heart skip a beat as he smiled and walked over to the side of her bed, planting a kiss on her forehead.

"You're awake."

"That I am, thought you'd get rid of me?"

"I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Arnold, how did we get out?"

"You don't remember? You sent me to get the helicopter. After you got knocked out, It flew overhead and checked the city. When we were clear, it dropped a rope ladder through a hole in the top. A team of medics in bright orange masks and suits grabbed you and Sid first and then Phoebe, Gerald, Curly and I climbed after you. We immediately flew you and Sid to the hospital."

"You haven't talked to anyone."

"The four of us have, it finally got out to the media that we were out and safe and reporters have been asking us questions for the past couple days."

"We're gonna have a lot of press conferences for this."

He laughed.

"You were always good at talking though."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing bad!"

"Mhmm. Sure." She winked at him and she watched his face get a bright shade of red.

"So Arnold, about that finding the perfect someone…"

Arnold laughed and kissed her.

"She's right here."

* * *

**And that, my faithful readers, is the end of I Will Blow the Cold Away.**

Damn, right?

I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it for you. :D

But if you're looking for something good to read, you can always read Songs of Hillwood for a little while. At least until I get my start on my next story. But I doubt that will be until August. With a summer class and work breathing down my neck. I'm going to hopefully still be able to keep up with Songs of Hillwood. Thank god I finished this before my class started!

I could, however, write a quick epilogue to wrap all this up. It would be a quick blurb about each character and their life after the zombies and stuff. If I get enough people that want to know, I'll do it. So review away!

**AWAY AND REVIEW I SAY!**

But again, thank you **SO SO MUCH** for all the reviews from before. They mean a lot!

-Love Always, Kate


	6. Epilogue

****Well here it is. The final **FINAL** part of I Will Blow the Cold Away. The long awaited epilogue.

Thank you so so much for all the positive reviews and all the people that have taken the time to read it. Love you guys so much!

* * *

**Epilogue**

**Gerald Johanssen and Phoebe Heyerdahl **

After Gerald and Phoebe made the promise that they would get married if they made it out, Gerald instantly proposed in the hospital room in front of Helga, Curly and Arnold. Phoebe, of course, said yes. They were married a couple months later surrounded by their families and friends, except for the immediate families that had not made it out Hillwood. It was sad to not have either of their parents at their weddings, but they had managed to make the best wedding that they could. Phoebe had Helga as her maid of honor and Gerald had Arnold as his best man. After their wedding and honeymoon, Phoebe went on to start college and major in Biology at Yale University while Gerald decided to go to a smaller college and major in business. They graduated with honors and Gerald decided to start a school to help children learn the basics of singing while Phoebe became a marine biologist. They also started a family of their own. They have two kids, Lydia and Michael. Lydia is now a junior in high school while her younger brother Michael is a freshman.

**Thaddeus Gammelthorpe**

After they were all saved, Curly stayed with his aunt and uncle in the countryside of Virginia and worked around several different small jobs in order to make enough money to get back into the city. After two or so years, he was able to afford the rent of a cheap apartment in Brooklyn. The first thing he did in the city was to attempt to find a member of Rhonda's family. He was shocked to find that Rhonda's parents had been in Aspen at the time of the Hillwood Zombie attack and found out that their daughter had been dead through him. It was like Rhonda's parents were too concerned with themselves and the money that they were making to realize that their daughter had been dead for almost a year. Curly then made it his mission to start a memorial fund in Rhonda's name. With the help of Phoebe and Gerald, he started his own school to help support children in cities like theirs before, learn to thrive and survive in the outside world. He became Gerald's business partner and named their school the Rhonda Wellington Lloyd School of the Arts and Humanities. Curly never married and never had any kids, because he knew that no one would be able to replace Rhonda is his heart.

**Sid Parker**

At the end of the short story, Sid was in a coma after losing a lot of blood from the knife in his stomach. He had visitors everyday in the remaining five survivors, most of the visits coming from Helga herself. After two long months of remaining in the coma, it was feared that he would never wake up. It was that day that a new interning nurse named Natalie was working by Sid's bedside when Sid awoke. He always says that he woke up to the face of an angel by his bedside. Unfortunately for Sid, he lost mobility in the lower half of his body but managed to make the best of it as he married his bedside angel, Natalie and had a son named James. James is the pride of Sid's life. James is a junior in high school and a star baseball player.

**Arnold Shortman **

Arnold went on to study history at a private college in upstate New York. He decided that he wanted to be a history teacher and spend 5 years in college before getting his Master's. He now teaches in a high school that Johanssen and Parker children all attend. He's a senior year World History teacher.

**Hillwood**

After the attack was ended and the zombies killed, the government decided that it was best to condemn Hillwood until they knew that it was habitable for people to live in again. It was recently declared as habitable and the remaining five survivors returned to the hometown. In the city, where the old P.S. 118 building used to stand, there is a cemetery of the fallen citizens of Hillwood so that they can be honored and buried in the place that they died. At the top of a newly formed hill, there is a small grave that shows the final resting place of Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, a noble fighter in the battle to save Hillwood.

**Helga Pataki**

At first, Helga didn't know what she wanted to do after she got out. She had decided to stay in Washington D.C. with Olga and her husband where she spent most of her time waiting tables and writing alone in her bedroom while rocking Olga's newborn daughter, Eleanor, nicknamed Ellie. After saving enough money, Helga went up to New York and on to study at NYU as she decided to train to become an actress. It wasn't something that she thought that she would have been able to do, since she mainly focused her efforts on writing for the past year. But once she got there, her natural talents came out. She made it big for a little while but wanted to slow down and start a family with the love of her life. She and Arnold got married in Hillwood, once it was rebuilt and honeymooned in San Lorenzo while Arnold's parents were helping the citizens there. They spent two years there before they decided to move back to Hillwood for the safety of their kids. They have three kids of their own, Miles and Stella, who are twins and Phillip. Miles and Stella are both freshman while Phillip is the 7th grade. It was during the time that her kids were at school that she decided to go back to writing under a fake name. Her first novel? A zombie survival story called I Will Not Blow the Cold Away.

And she and the rest of the Hillwood Six lived happily ever after.

* * *

You see what I did there? xD I know, I know, lameeee. :P

But honestly, I hope that finally catches you up on what happened after this whole story. Thanks for reading. :)


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